This blog is to share all my homemade crafts and ideas.

Tag Archives: beads

Sooo pleased with this!

Alice Band Black Swan

A little project just for me. I just couldn’t resist making myself this cute head band. The swan itself was drawn by myself, transferred onto felt and embellished with a lace ‘half’ yo-yo’, then decorated with seed beads. Other decorations I added were some little vintage black buttons, bugle beads and faceted glass beads. For the eye I used a vintage green Mother of Pearl button with a fish eye design. I embroidered a simple trellis on the chest too.

I’m so pleased with this, I’m going to make a few more animal designs. Next I want to try an octopus, I think this will look great too in those white and dirty vintage creams and off pinks. *squeals* can’t wait!

Oh, and to top it off.. I’m going to the NEC in Birmingham to the Sewing for Pleasure Craft Event at the end of March! Will be buying loads of fabric goodies and crafting essentials.

Stash Buster Project

Beaded Coaster or Cover

So, I was given a free book of crochet patterns. It was from the May 2010 ‘Let’s Knit’ Issue. I hadn’t picked up a crochet hook for a long time. Since I struggled to complete a blanket for my unborn son at the time. But as this seemed quite quick, I referred to my ‘how to’ book of crocheting and finished it in a flash! These would make excellent stocking fillers. You could easily convert them to look Christmas-ee. Sorry I mentioned the ‘C’ word already. But hey, you gotta be prepared. So many crafting options, so little time.

The beads I used were glass, but I should have used more or chosen a heavier bead so that they would weigh it down to bring out the shape better. You could, of course, use any colour combination. I just used what I had, and I just happened to only have white in 4 ply. The suggest you can use ribbon, but you could use any yarn you like. Just choose an appropriate hook and if your yarn or yarn substitute is much thicker then make reduce the amount of rounds you make.

If you missed this issue and would like to get this pattern. It can be found in the book ‘Two Balls or Less’ by Jenny Hill. It’s RRP is about £12.99 and has over 30 simple crochet and knitting projects.

Enhancing a simple knit scarf

Click to enlarge

A little project I was asked to do was to jazz up this hand knit scarf. A few sequins and beads later I came up with this. It’s quite a trend to have sequins sewn onto knitted accessories so for sure this is not ‘new’. But if you do this yourself it will definitely be unique.

To do this technique tie your sewing thread to the scarf where you would like the sequin. Thread your sequin and bead onto the needle and push to the fabric. Thread the needle back through the sequin and tie off below. Try not to go too deep through the scarf as you don’t want the thread showing on the other side. If your sequins aren’t too spaced you can do more than one at a time by threading your cotton through the scarf so that it can’t be seen. Do several of these and tie off securely.

Add some tassel with leftover yarn from your project. Add in a bit of coloured yarn to tie in the colours and you have a completely overhauled scarf!